TebowSanchezWatch 2012: It’s a Disaster!

It is sometimes difficult not to end every sentence you write about the quarterback "situation" with Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow with! an! exclamation! point! It is a situation that seems to require one to cover it both screamingly and ironically. Anyway, if you were a Jets fan and watched that exhibition game against the Giants on Friday ... well, we're sorry you went through that. You shouldn't have done that!

The Jets got killed, but worse was the performance of Tebow, who was 5-of-14 for 69 yards and couldn't run the ball either. Sanchez wasn't much better ... but he wasn't that bad. It was pretty much hideous across the board.

This is the dirty secret of the big Tebow-Sanchez madness: It's possible we're having this extended, exhausting "debate" about, well, about two mediocre quarterbacks. Neither has looked particularly good this preseason. For years, the Jets, despite two AFC Championship games, have been accused of being more style than substance. This quarterback situation could be the logical extension — and the end — of all that.

Though we were reading the 2012 Football Outsiders Almanacthis weekend, and we came across a passage that, to our eyes, pretty much sums up how this thing may all go down:

There’s a good chance that all of the Jets’ talk about their Wildcat package is just coded language, and Tebow will become the starter after Sanchez’s first stalled drive. Keeping Tebow in the game and letting him throw wobblers makes more sense than shuttling Sanchez on and off the bench to attempt passes with slightly less wobble. The threat of a Tebow scramble is more likely to keep the defense honest than the threat of Sanchez suddenly figuring out what he is doing.

That last part just kills us. The threat of a Tebow scramble is more likely to keep the defense honest than the threat of Sanchez suddenly figuring out what he is doing. Jets football, 2012! Get excited!